


The Princess and the Knight

by Monochromely



Series: Flower Child [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 09:18:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17826023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monochromely/pseuds/Monochromely
Summary: The story of how Blue and Yellow Diamond, a princess and a knight, first met. "Flower Child" Verse. Human AU.





	The Princess and the Knight

**Author's Note:**

> Lololol, I don't quite know how to explain myself, but last night, I suddenly got the urge to write "Flower Child" Blue and Yellow's first meeting... and so I did. Muse is such a wild thing, lol.
> 
> The title and minor gimmick comes from Yellow's dream in Chapter 6!

Just because she knew it would piss her mother off, Yellow Diamond straddled the limo seat as though she had never seen a chair before, one knee at _kingdom_ and the other at _com_ e. A daring smile languished in her golden eyes, on her lips, and in the haughty tilt of her aquiline nose.

White Diamond, magnificent as always in a shimmering backless number, was not impressed.

“You’re being impossible,” she hissed, all politeness (all thinly veiled anger). Her mouth did not say what her shining black eyes did. The fifty-nine year old CEO had long been masterful at the art of strangling all of her emotions into a voice so saccharine that it could have spun honey.

Yellow, on the other hand, meant every word she said.

Yellow, on the other hand, had a laugh like a bark—harsh, discordant, unfiltered.

“I thought we weren’t allowed to use that word,” she taunted. “Nothing is impossible for us Diamonds and all of that aphoristic nonsense.”

“You know what I meant.”

The twenty-one year old flicked a lazy hand through her stiff coiffure, causing her mother’s nostrils to flare slightly.

“I know only what I’ve been told.”

“Smart aleck,” White said primly, her gaze sharp enough to cut yourself on.

“I learned from the best,” Yellow retorted, her natural bluntness the weapon _she_ brought to the table in return.

At a stalemate, they collapsed into an electric silence then, refusing to look at each other. Outside the black tinted windows, the modern part of the city gave way to the old-moneyed part of the city. Squared apartments became old Grecian buildings became manicured bushes became signs on every corner that let one know that this place was historic. A renowned senator attended school here. A President signed a declaration there.

The damn street lamps were _gold_.

Across from her, White Diamond’s microscopic sigh demanded to be heard, tiny though it was. She pinched the bridge of her pointed nose and stared plaintively at her daughter from behind the intricate tangle of her long fingers.

“I know you’d rather not be here.”

“You’re right,” Yellow acquiesced readily. “I’d rather be working on my application for grad school.”

“ _But,_ ” White continued on as though she hadn’t heard her, “this is the most lucrative social event of the season, Yellow! You’ll have the opportunity to rub shoulders with presidents and CEOs and princes and duchesses. You’ll get to prove your mettle as the incumbent heiress of Diamond Electric!”

Yellow’s face pinched itself together in the darkness. Disdain rolled off her shoulders in waves.

“You know I don’t care for _any_ of those things, Mother. I know my own worth.” Her fists were clenched on her knees. “I know that I’m going to make a damn fine CEO one day.”

“It isn’t just about _you_ , though,” White Diamond sighed again, and by some grand miracle, her forehead creased through all of the botox. “Crucify me for wanting the _world_ to see who you are, too.”

Yellow looked away at this, looked out of the window.

The streetlights suffused across her face.

Orange in the hollows of her cheeks.

Gold.

“You’re my daughter, Yellow, and because of that, but also _beyond_ that, you’re _extraordinary_.”

The sincerity pressed against Yellow’s skin.

It made her itch.

“Be a dear and let someone know it tonight.”

—

Blue Montgomery stood between her mother and father and tried very hard not to remember that she was a crown jewel. Pale and slender and draped in blue silk, she was a porcelain doll reconciled. And tonight, as was the lot of most porcelain dolls, she would be packaged and sold, would be auctioned off for _charity_.

_You, sir—yes, you!—could win a lunch date with the Alistair Montgomery’s daughter if you throw money at this vaguely philanthropic cause!_

_Look at her!_

_She’s gorgeous and smart but too cold and distant to be a threat to your fragile sense of masculinity! You can call her sweet thing and then affably write her off as a heartless shrew when it’s all said and done!_

_She’s perfect!_

The misogyny of it all was not lost on this young woman, but as she sipped champagne from a skinny flute, she desperately tried to make it so.

She was a Montgomery.

And that meant something around these parts.

At the very least, it meant that she had to perform.

So when old men came up to them and called her charming, she smiled, all teeth, and took it; they kissed her on the hand and cheek. Their hands sometimes fell from her waist to her ass.

She politely affirmed that she was Ivy League material, but dared not talk about her own ambitions lest they were too ambitious to belong to the likes of her.

She held her head high, even though the weight of the diamonds around her neck felt like a noose.

Blue Montgomery was perfect in every conceivable way.

(She was extraordinarily miserable.)

“Oh, Alistair,” Vivian Montgomery whispered cattily under her breath, “look who’s heading this way.”

As her mother quickly rearranged her haughty disdain into a socialite’s politeness, Blue followed her father’s austere gaze to the pair of people now approaching them, and was promptly surprised to find that she immediately recognized the older of the two. Even if she _hadn’t_ been in a sweeping silvery dress, White Diamond, founder and CEO of the fastest rising company in Empire City, was unmistakable.

Nowadays, she often smiled sultrily at you from the covers of _Forbes_ and _Fortune_ , magazines that were the bread and butter, the Bible and Catechism of the Montgomery household. She had spiky white hair and glittering black eyes and a plump smile that was about as safe as an unsheathed knife.

Blue’s parents didn’t much care for her.

Didn’t care for anyone really who wasn’t _already_ born with a gold pacifier in their mouth.

“White!” Vivian exclaimed as though they were all dear friends.

“Vivian! Alistair!” White Diamond gamely played along, extending her pale arms outwards for an embrace with her mother.

The two women hugged like two women who hate each tend to do—quite warmly—and as the CEO withdrew, Blue noticed that her finely manicured nails were blacker than night, pitch.

She extended one of these ink tipped hands towards her companion, whom Blue had quite forgotten to notice, so distracted by the positively peacocking White, but now, she afforded a closer look.

(“You remember my daughter Yellow, right?”)

It was rather difficult to make an impression next to the nigh ethereally striking White Diamond, but Yellow Diamond almost came close, Blue thought, studying this slender statue of a CEO’s daughter as their parents exchanged passive aggressive pleasantries _about_ them _over_ them.

(“My Yellow just finished an undergraduate thesis!”)

(“Our dear Blue was recently accepted into Yale for graduate school.”)

There was something almost Grecian in Yellow’s aspect, with her sharply defined jawbone and ultra straight nose. The taut muscles in her creamy neck ran smoothly into her crisply ironed button down. She wore a suit vest and matching dress pants the very color of her mother’s nails. Her hands were tucked somewhat insolently into her pockets, but a frown was tucked more subtly in the firm press of her plump lips.

These little quirks aside, she very well looked like the future CEO of Diamond Electric one day.

So Blue Montgomery did what Montgomerys do.

She performed.

“Hello,” she ventured politely. (Yellow’s golden eyes raked her appraisingly, but at least she didn’t try to _grab Blue’s ass_ , which was a nice change in pace all things considering.) “Are you enjoying the night so far?”

(“White,” Alistair crooned and lied, “you have to come out to the estate sometime.”)

(“Of course!” White crooned and lied in courteous return. “That would be lovely.”)

“I suppose I’m compelled to say yes,” Yellow answered drolly, her gaze subtly sliding over to her mother. “And you?”

It was the honesty that was so surprising to Blue, for honesty was so rare in this picture perfect life that she lived.

She arched an eyebrow.

Something small quirked at her lips.

She made sure that her parents were still wrapped up in out-politing White before she replied.

“Likewise.”

The golden-eyed heiress only grinned.

—

As they walked away from the Montgomery trio, Yellow Diamond couldn’t _quite_ leave one Montgomery behind.

Blue Montgomery.

Blue.

Her long, brown hair spilled across her back in silky waves. There were oceans in her delicately shaped eyes, seas in the midnight blue gown that poured down her body.

Something secretive in that little smile of hers.

Something that suggested that discovering her would be a treasure all on its own.

Of course, White Diamond, because she was _White Diamond_ , knew instantly.

As she sashayed through the spillage of gowns and tuxedos, outshining them all, she admonished her daughter lightly.

“She’s a Montgomery,” she warned, a party ready smile still slashed across her face. “Her empire is oil, and the very same has run through her blood for generations upon generations. Her parents look down on us for being what they refer to as new money. _Assuredly_ , she does, too.”

Alistair Montgomery was the richest oil tycoon on the East Coast.

Just like his father before him had been.

And his grandfather.

And his great-grandfather.

And—

“And you know”—White waved airily at some senator and some prince and some other important person and _still_ found time to belabor the point—“she’s probably not _inclined_ the way you are.”

Yellow scowled.

Deeply.

“ _Thanks_ , Mother.”

White posed for a camera just as her daughter deftly stepped out of the frame.

“I’m only trying to spare you the heartbreak, dear.”

—

Before the auction, there was a _silent_ auction, and rich people meandered from white-clothed table to white-clothed table to bid on items such as artisanal doorknobs for ten thousands of dollars.

(Vivian Montgomery was one of these people, and surprisingly enough, her daughter was, too.Granted, she chased a _different_ kind of stupid commodity to blow money on.)

After extracting herself from the attentions of a senator’s son—who was more interested in her cleavage than her personage—Blue found herself at a table where rare books were being auctioned. Folio copies of _Jane Eyre_ and _The Iliad_ and _The Scarlet Letter_. Signed Hemingways and first edition Joyces. A full, antiquated set of the _Oxford English Dictionary_.

A lover of all things literature, a delicate smile adorned the twenty-one year old’s features.

A connoisseur of Greek mythology, she found herself drawn to the folio of _The Iliad_.

The highest bid was currently $450.

Without the slightest hesitation, in her sweeping handwriting, Blue topped that number with $1,000.

“That seems excessive,” came a dry voice at her shoulder.

She bristled at the closeness of the voice and turned to confront it, only to find herself face to face with Yellow Diamond.

Her golden eyes were edged in playfulness.

And insolence.

And arrogance.

She looked like a shark amongst men.

 _Next CEO of Diamond Electric_ , Blue reminded herself, forcing her indignation into some semblance of a polite smile. _She didn’t mean any harm._

“We’re all wealthy here,” she said, intimating a shrug with her voice (for ladies did not shrug). “Excess is the playground we thrive in.”

“I thought this whole charade was supposed to be for charity?” Yellow teased. As the night had worn on, the hairspray which had held her coiffure together had seemingly given up the ghost, leaving her golden hair to spill around her head like a crown of feathers.

“Mm”—Blue pretended to be deeply invested in the list for her beloved book again—“that’s the keyword, isn’t it, though? _Charade_.”

The heiress laughed.

It was a harsh, clanging sound.

It fit her like a glove.

“Charade indeed.”

—

Yellow continued asking questions, and Blue continued to answer them as they went from table to table without really looking at anything… except for each other. (They passed glances, back and forth, gold meeting blue meeting gold.)

“Why do you prefer Greek mythology so much?”

_“Because it’s nice to be swept away on the wine dark sea with all kinds of flawed heroes and villains, goddesses and monsters. Their tragedies are poignant because they’re human.”_

“What could you have been doing tonight besides being here?”

_She sighed wistfully, the sound trailing through the air like dandelion dust. “Literally anything.”_

“Is this… okay?” Yellow gestured somewhat awkwardly to the charged space between them. Perhaps the better question to have asked would have been: _Am I okay being here?_ But one query was certainly more vulnerable than the other, and dammit, Yellow would endure so many more things before she would ever admit to  _vulnerability_.

_Blue tilted her head, and a curtain of her thick hair swept to the side, leaving her slender neck exposed. Yellow’s pulse was somewhere in the column of her throat._

_“I don’t see why not.”_

They continued in this manner—on and on—and would have done so all night had Mrs. Montgomery not interrupted them as they were discussing trickle-down economics in the shallow way that only twenty-something-year-old capitalists could.

Mrs. Montgomery appraised Yellow with a cold politeness before just as coldly shutting her out of the conversation.

“The auction will be starting soon,” she said, straightening Blue’s necklace. “Perhaps you should take a reprieve to freshen up in the bathroom?”

It was a question, but it was also _not_ a question.

Yellow Diamond was well familiar with the art of the implicit command given her _own_ mother.

“Of course, Mother,” Blue replied with a smile that never quite reached her sapphire eyes. Seemingly satisfied, Mrs. Montgomery heeled away, and Yellow leveled a frown at her companion.

“You’re going to be part of the auction?” Oh, there was certainly some horror in her voice.

A fair dash of indignation, too.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Blue snapped and then blanched when she realized she did.

It was the first time she had risen her voice all night, for she was remarkably self-possessed.

But she was also only human.

(It was kind of _hot,_ but it was more so infuriating given what she was raising her voice _for_.)

Narrowing her eyes, Yellow took the bait.

“Why not?” She asked scathingly. “Pray tell why shouldn’t I be concerned that you’re about to get up on that stage and be sold like a pig for the slaughter?”

Blue looked wildly around for ears and eyes that were too obsessed with their own selves to care about the conversation two spoiled heiresses were having.

“Keep your voice down!”

“Fine,” Yellow hissed. “I’m still not impressed with what you’re about to do, though.”

Blue’s dark hair seemed to frizz around the outline of her face.

“You don’t have to be! I barely know you!”

“Hell, I don’t have to know you to know that auctioning off women is screwed up.”

Blue Montgomery recoiled where she stood, a ship upended in the sea, and it was then that Yellow knew they were on the same page.

That horror was rising in them both like storms.

“It’s just a lunch date,” she whispered.

Justifying it.

Convincing herself.

Stomaching something unimaginable.

Yellow shook her head, her mouth pressed into a thin, exacting line.

“I’ll believe that when _you_ do.”

—

Blue Montgomery stood on the stage, swollen in white spotlight, and could not forget that she was the crown jewel of this auction. Pale and slender and draped in blue silk, she was no embroidered golf bag, nor three day vacation to a ski resort. She was something _better_ —flesh and blood and a pipeline to Montgomery family oil. She was a porcelain doll reconciled. The auctioneer saved her for last.

“And now we have Blue Montgomery, who has so charitably agreed to go on a lunch date with the highest bidder! Give it up for our dear Alistair’s lovely, brilliant daughter!”

Applause sweltered below.

There was a hunger in the air.

“Let’s start the bidding at $50! Do we have $50? Yes, we have $50!”

The senator’s son whose eye line was permanently drawn below her face.

“Oh, sorry, son! Looks like we have $100! $150! $200!”

An older man with a walrus mustache.

He smiled up at her with all of his shiny teeth.

Blue was going to be sick.

“$300! $350! Goodness, you men are amped up! Ahaha, but there’s no question as to why! $400! _$450!_ ”

It was the senator’s son again.

“$450 going once!”

A couple of tuxedoed companions slapped congratulations on his smug back.

“$450 going twice!”

It was sickening to watch.

It was impossible to comprehend.

All of the blood drained from Blue’s face and pooled in her throat.

She was drowning in it.

Suffocating.

“Sol—hold on, lad!” The auctioneer suddenly placed his hand over his eyes as a visor against the harsh spotlight. Blue couldn’t quite make out what he was looking at, the world dancing across her eyes, swaying and blurring.

“ _$1,000 from the young man in the back!_ ”

The crowd gasped. (They all liked a good drama.)

“$1,000 going once!”

Senator boy petulantly hurled himself back into his chair.

“$1,000 going twice!”

His friends promptly slapped condolences on him.

“ _Sold!_ Congratulations, sir! You’ve just landed a date with a very special lady this weekend! C’mon up and meet her!”

Tuxedos and gowns and gasps and whispers parted down the middle to let the dumbass who just spent $1,000 dollars on a date through.

Her head was held high.

Her grin could have rent the world in two.

Blue’s lips parted in a soft _oh_ of surprise as Yellow Diamond ascended the stairs, two steps at a time.

What a dumbass, that knight in shining armor.

What a wonder.

—

Backstage, the princess awarded her savior with a softened glance.

And a _thank you_ , quietly spoken.

Meant.

“Listen, it was either this or me punching that guy,” Yellow shrugged, quite obviously embarrassed. Even her pointed hair seemed to be in shock, standing up on end.

“Seems excessive,” Blue batted back, a wry tilt at her lips.

Yellow Diamond didn’t miss a beat.

“We’re all wealthy here,” she grinned. “Excess is the playground we thrive in.”

But then, just as quickly as she had lightened, the heiress’s face became all seriousness again, harsh angles and even harsher lines.

“I’m not going to hold you to that date, though,” she said with an emphatic shake of the head. “You’re not a damn trophy to bought and sold, Blue, and besides”—she laughed that singularly dissonant laugh again—“you’re worth _way_ more than a thousand dollars.”

Blue thought she would have been more relieved to be freed from the obligation.

But she wasn’t.

And it confused her.

Somehow, she mustered some semblance of a smile.

“That’s very generous of you,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

Yellow Diamond dragged a self-conscious hand across the back of her neck; red popped across her sharp cheekbones in what very well may have been a blush.

They weren’t standing very far apart from each other.

There was electricity in the air.

Potential.

Blue wondered what it would be like to run her fingers through that lush, golden hair.

(And forgot to wonder why she was even wondering such a thing.)

“Anytime.”

—

“What the _hell_ , Moms?” Pink Diamond protested, slapping her hands on the marble countertop before turning on Blue. “I grew up half of my life thinking Momma opened a trapdoor and, like, found you or something!”

“Language,” Blue only chided, but the smile softening her lips betrayed her.

(Love did.)

Leaning against the fridge, arms crossed over her chest, Yellow’s laugh was like a bark—harsh, discordant, unfiltered.

“I didn’t slay any dragons per say,” she smirked, “but you should have seen the look on pretty boy’s face when I outbid him.”

“It was quite the sight,” Blue agreed, a mischievous tilt in her dark eyebrows.

“Damn straight.” Yellow’s golden eyes shone with the memory.

Looking between her parents, Pink only laughed and clapped her hands together. The freckles scattered across her cheeks bunched up and then expanded with each humor-stricken breath.

“And so the princess and the knight…” she grinned with an inviting tip of her head towards Blue.

“And the little elfin poppet,” Blue added, reaching across the countertop to brush a smudge off her daughter’s pointed nose. (Pink _always_ had some smudge on her face or another. Paint. Makeup. Glitter.)

“Lived their happily ever after,” Yellow rolled her eyes, like she was above their sugary nonsense, though she was quite obviously perfectly content to inhabit it all the same.

In that kitchen, Pink Diamond was seventeen years old.

By then, she had already lived out most of her life.


End file.
